The scale is going to keep getting worse though there has been SEO crap, blogspam etc etc since the internet started. This is just the latest. There's an opportunity to build a search mechanism that is immune to the broadening underbelly of the internet, just like there was in the early days.
It is that easy, the thesis is already on the internet. reboot pagerank and dump the NLP. Flag sites that create content too fast and let users find webpages that match their query.
This would be difficult today because this would still be a niche thing as that ship has sailed since Google has tethered itself everywhere.
Every time you enumerate another method for making a functional search engine right now, you also posit a way for it to be circumvented in an hour or two.
"Oh, it's easy! Just bring PageRank back, and flag sites that create content too fast!"
Later that afternoon: sites multiply, and individually generate content slowly
It does feel like people don't give Google enough credit that, even in it's current state, they still do a pretty good job in the face of basically every bad actor on the internet.
Google is at an advantage here. They can see into their own blackbox and instantly change the rules whenever they want. The abusers have to wait a while to see the results of their experiments, knowing that Google can put all that effort to waste instantly.
I disagree with the authors assertion that a simple watermark would solve the issue. I don't see how you can ever enforce something like a "Clean Air act" against AI. AI is a spectrum and thus it will be a gray area.
It would require a draconian system in place that would make people swear that content their posting isn't AI and then have steep penalties for breaking "the oath". But what if someone used a spell checker? Grammar checker? or sentence rewriting in Grammarly? should they be punished for breaking the "clean internet act"?
If an honor system doesn't work, then one possibility is to use an economic system so that there is a cost and value associated with the content being produced. However as we have seen with the decline of journalism, is that is hard to get people to pay for quality content. so the cheaper content would still win.
Maybe something like a legal tax for content produced could work though. If you produce over Xmb of content as an individual you start to get taxed on your "pollution" to the internet. Single internet user just posting: no tax, influencer posting youtube videos: small tax, AI company dumping out 1000s of books and 1000s of videos: big tax.
Democratic power puts it in the hands of people. Now, if you’re saying that your democracy doesn’t serve its people — I wouldn’t blame the politicians. You might want to take a look at why politicians don’t act in the interests of the population
Analogy is to plagiarism. The normal person content industry seems to do an okay job ejecting plagiarists and they should be encouraged to do the same with ai generated sludge.
This article implies most content on the internet wasn’t already pollution anyways. It was already possible to min max SEO with bash scripts, AI doesn’t change any of that.
Is it really bad, or is it yet another “kids playing games nowadays” bad?
We just invented new instruments for being lazy. The articles were diluted to meet page quota before. The absurd, idiotic videos for kids didn’t start with AI. Models knew about collapse from the start, they’ll figure out.
IMO, the article is a low-key FUD piece with no goal.
The internet pollution is being done by humans. They're only now using AI to do so.
> In other words, significant numbers of researchers at A.I. conferences were caught handing their peer review of others’ work over to A.I. — or, at minimum, writing them with lots of A.I. assistance.
AI is the lazy tool at the moment, but the internet was already polluted by humans using other means for other reasons besides publishing papers.
Every technological convenience or economic cost reduction has similar effects: email spam, SMS, automated calls, ...
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 59.2 ms ] threadA.I.-Generated Garbage Is Polluting Our Culture
And here's a gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/29/opinion/ai-internet-x-you...
Although it would be nice if it truly were that easy.
This would be difficult today because this would still be a niche thing as that ship has sailed since Google has tethered itself everywhere.
"Oh, it's easy! Just bring PageRank back, and flag sites that create content too fast!"
Later that afternoon: sites multiply, and individually generate content slowly
It would require a draconian system in place that would make people swear that content their posting isn't AI and then have steep penalties for breaking "the oath". But what if someone used a spell checker? Grammar checker? or sentence rewriting in Grammarly? should they be punished for breaking the "clean internet act"?
If an honor system doesn't work, then one possibility is to use an economic system so that there is a cost and value associated with the content being produced. However as we have seen with the decline of journalism, is that is hard to get people to pay for quality content. so the cheaper content would still win.
Maybe something like a legal tax for content produced could work though. If you produce over Xmb of content as an individual you start to get taxed on your "pollution" to the internet. Single internet user just posting: no tax, influencer posting youtube videos: small tax, AI company dumping out 1000s of books and 1000s of videos: big tax.
Don’t see why politicians should get to profit from it
It is OK to make an argument against taking power from one group by force and giving to another.
All laws are easy to break. I could quite literally walk up to someone and punch them in the face right now. And chances are I won't be caught.
I could also push someone. Would that be assault? What if I merely touch them? Almost everything is a spectrum and has gray areas.
zing!
We just invented new instruments for being lazy. The articles were diluted to meet page quota before. The absurd, idiotic videos for kids didn’t start with AI. Models knew about collapse from the start, they’ll figure out.
IMO, the article is a low-key FUD piece with no goal.
> In other words, significant numbers of researchers at A.I. conferences were caught handing their peer review of others’ work over to A.I. — or, at minimum, writing them with lots of A.I. assistance.
AI is the lazy tool at the moment, but the internet was already polluted by humans using other means for other reasons besides publishing papers.
Every technological convenience or economic cost reduction has similar effects: email spam, SMS, automated calls, ...